Relevance in a Utilitarian Category

The telco market in Indonesia—much like in most countries—is structurally a utilitarian category. Consumer engagement is primarily driven by functional needs such as coverage, speed, and price, rather than emotional or aspirational brand affinity.

In such categories, brand relevance is less effectively built through communication or cultural storytelling, and more through how deeply a brand embeds itself into consumers’ daily lives. Over time, a complete and integrated suite of products and services—spanning mobile, fixed connectivity, digital services, and ecosystem integration—reinforces habitual usage, which ultimately underpins brand loyalty.

Observations also suggest that in utilitarian categories, interest peaks when innovation is directly tied to everyday usage, and weakens when driven by broader technological narratives with limited immediate relevance. In this context, brand relevance is earned less through storytelling, and more through consistent, functional integration into daily digital behavior.

In my previous article, Brand Building in a Utilitarian Category: Why Telco Relevance Is Earned Through Usage, Not Storytelling, I observed that Indosat’s launch of HiFi—its fixed internet offering—complemented by HiFi Air as a fixed wireless access solution, has succeeded in driving significant interest at the product level.

The question, however, is how far this momentum goes. Does increased product interest translate into positive brand impact?

To provide context, in 2017 XL launched XL Home, a cellular-based home router equipped with large data packages targeting households and small businesses. Interest in XL Home peaked around its launch, as reflected in web search trends, before plateauing and gradually declining over time.

In contrast, following Indosat’s acquisition of MNC Play and its subsequent rebranding into Indosat HiFi, search interest in HiFi has risen sharply—surpassing that of XL Home. Even HiFi Air’s search volume has approached comparable levels, despite being significantly newer in market.

(A quick note on comparability: I compare Indosat HiFi with XL Home—not IndiHome—because the scale and timing are more comparable. IndiHome’s dominance would mask early momentum signals, while the HiFi–XL Home comparison allows a clearer read on relative relevance and adoption)

However, this growing interest has not yet been accompanied by a corresponding shift in sentiment. Overall sentiment toward Indosat HiFi remains neutral, with a balance of positive and negative signals. A similar neutrality persists at the Indosat brand level.

This suggests that within its first year, Indosat—through HiFi—has successfully generated consideration driven by product relevance. At the same time, both consumers and the company appear to be in an early experiential phase. Customers are still forming judgments based on real usage, while Indosat is likely still in rollout and quality stabilization mode.

To fully capitalize on this momentum, two priorities emerge. First, accelerating improvements in customer experience is critical, so rising interest translates into positive advocacy rather than neutral evaluation. Second, clearer brand linkage is essential. Search behavior indicates that “HiFi” significantly outperforms “Indosat HiFi” as a query, suggesting that product-level interest is not yet fully accruing to the mother brand. Strengthening this association will be key if Indosat aims to capture a broader halo effect at brand level.

In closing, this reinforces a refined hypothesis: in utilitarian categories, brand relevance is most effectively built not through storytelling alone, but through positive, repeated daily experiences delivered by an integrated suite of branded products and services. Over time, it is this embedded usage—rather than narrative—that shapes habit, and ultimately, loyalty.

Frinzy Zulkarnain

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